A top State Farm executive was fired this week after saying the insurer’s California rate hikes are “kind of” orchestrated and after making disparaging remarks about Pacific Palisades homeowners that were caught on an undercover video.
Haden Kirkpatrick, State Farm Mutual’s vice president for innovation and venture capital, was recorded saying that the request by its California subsidiary for rate hikes was “kind of” orchestrated “but not in the way you would think,” according to a video published by O’Keefe Media Group, a conservative outlet.
“Our people look at this and say, ‘S—, we’ve got like maybe $5 billion that we’re short if something happens.’ We’ll go to the Department of Insurance and say, ‘We’re overexposed here, you have to let us catch up our [rates]’. … He’ll say ‘Nah.’ And we’ll say, ‘OK, then we are going to cancel these policies,’ ” he said in the video, recorded surreptitiously in January after the fires…